State of the Union: WCHA Edition

Now that fall is closing in, it’s time for the Old Dog to take a look at the WCHA and see where it stands in the national scheme of things. In this first dive, we’ll peer into the competitive nature of the six NCAA Division I conferences by looking at last season’s results.

Like most conferences, the WCHA has sorted itself into a group of haves and have-nots. The “haves” clearly include Minnesota State, Bowling Green, our own Huskies and Bemidji State. Northern Michigan vaulted into this group with their outstanding 2017-18 season, too.

In the “have not” category are Alaska and Alaska-Anchorage, plus Lake Superior State. Sitting a bit in limbo are Alabama-Huntsville and Ferris State. The Chargers from Huntsville are slowly improving every year, and are no longer an automatic win for any of the haves. The Bulldogs from Big Rapids seem to be sinking—just a few years removed from an NCAA finals finish as well as a first-round Big Skate win in 2015—and it’s starting to look like they may be shifting to the bottom tier.

It’s hard to count out FSU Coach Bob Daniels, though, who’s won a lot of games with less than high-end talent. On the other hand, it’s not difficult to see that the facilities in Big Rapids are so inferior that it might be difficult to get even coachable diamonds-in-the-rough to head for their outdated, undersized rink, a building that would be well below the acceptable standard for most municipal or high school programs.

The joker in the deck is the league’s non-conference record. Overall, it’s been lousy for several years now, although Tech and Mankato had a few notable out-of-conference wins last year. All in all, the WCHA is just a bit ahead of Atlantic Hockey, but sits quite a way back from the ECAC.

Here are the 2017-2018 out of conference records, and you can see where the WCHA stands:

What about attendance? The number of fans in each arena is another place that suggests where a conference stands in national perspective. Looking at home rink attendance for the past season, the WCHA has done reasonably well, but they are firmly behind the Big Ten, Hockey East, and the NCHC by any measure.

The Big Ten had the highest total attendance—just slightly ahead of the NCHC, at more than 850,000—and reached that level with only seven teams. In terms of filling their arenas, NCHC is at 82% and the Big Ten is at 80%. However, Ohio State pulls down the Big Ten in this statistic, because the Buckeyes only fill 30% of the Value City Arena, with a capacity of almost 19,000. But they are hip deep in discussions about a smaller arena.

Hockey East, with more teams and some larger arenas, is about 150,000 behind the NCHC and Big Ten. The WCHA is fourth in total attendance but tied for last in capacity at 56%.

Here are the summary statistics, which (like all of the conference summaries in this article) were derived from team statistics on USCHO.com :

Team scoring can also be revealing. A league with teams that score a lot of goals showcases exciting hockey. Powerplay success is another aspect of individual excellence and coaching acumen. Goals against per game also reveal attention to defense and goaltending. And finally, total goal differential per game shows another aspect of both competitiveness within the league and success in non-conference play.

In terms of these statistics, the NCHC and the Big Ten are again on top, with Hockey East not far behind. The ECAC had the lowest goals against per game average, but was near the bottom on goals for, telling us that there were a lot of close, low-scoring contests in that conference.

In this category, the WCHA was at or near the bottom in almost every single case—fewest goals scored, tied for least successful powerplay, second from the worst goals against, and the worst goal differential per game at -0.21.

By most measures, the WCHA was one of the two weakest conferences last year. Overall, it’s hard to ignore the best teams in the league, but the have-not teams, particularly Alaska-Anchorage, pull the conference average down in most of the categories we’ve looked at. And that’s a common theme for Atlantic Hockey and the ECAC as well. Their standing in these categories is brought down by the poor performance of their second-tier teams.

No matter what WCHA partisans—like The Old Dog—may want to believe or even deeply believe, it’s tough to make a case for the WCHA belonging in the upper tier of NCAA D-1 conferences. That’s significant, and it poses risks to the future stability of the league, including the ability of teams to recruit high-end talent and to capture the national press attention that all conferences crave. This situation also limits potential television revenue, which is another story that might be worthy of a separate column.

That’s enough for now. Before the regular season starts, we’ll take a look at how the WCHA might find its place if and when the next round of conference realignment shakes things up. It’s clear there won’t be anything happening for the upcoming season, but that could change in the next few years, or even after the next season. The future of the WCHA is anything but secure—and the statistics tell a good part of that story.

Mike Anleitner is a 1972 Michigan Tech grad, and he was in the first class of what has become the Scientific & Technical Communications program. He also has an engineering degree from Wayne State and an MBA from Michigan-Ross. He’s worked for forty years in various manufacturing and engineering positions, and is spending the last decade of his working life at Lennox Industries, watching after the quality of Lennox heating, cooling, and air quality products. He lives with his wife of 45 years Carol–also a ’72 Tech grad–in Addison, TX, a Dallas suburb with more restaurants per capita than any other municipality in the US.

Even though it will make things tougher for the Huskies we need for the league to be better.

October 2, 2018 at 11:09 pm

Bob

Thanks Michael for the great post. Hope to see you in Huntsville.

Bob & Gail
Frisco Tech Fans

October 3, 2018 at 7:07 am

Michael Anleitner

We’ll be there. Already have tickets for both nights.

October 3, 2018 at 12:52 pm

Todd A Van Kleeck

I just am curious, as I have not done the math, how those standings and numbers would change if we did NOT have the two Alaska teams. Simply eliminating them would raise capacity percentages and many other numbers significantly. They don’t have very big home crowds, and the logistics make it difficult to travel for fans. Throw in the facility in Big Rapids, which doesn’t even measure up to minimum standards, and it gets even better. Tech has a good turnout, and probably helps other teams with numbers due to traveling fans. Alabama is no great shakes either in terms of numbers of fans. But, Tech, and now NMU, Mankato, Bemidji, and even Lake State, and I believe Bowling Green are way up in the stats. We are at a terrible disadvantage in terms of numbers of students, which relates to other conferences. To be sure, the WCHA needs to improve its record against other conferences, but I see some of this coming this year, again, except for the Alaska teams and some others. Tech has a very difficult non conference schedule. Can’t speak about others, but the “have nots” will drag that statistic down with and O and how many record.

October 3, 2018 at 1:19 pm

Michael Anleitner

All probably true but you would need to do the same for Atlantic Hockey and the ECAC too

October 3, 2018 at 4:34 pm

Tom Boyd

Todd, your ideas (basically, dropping poor teams) have already been tried, and have been proven successful. It is called the NCHC.

Occasionally I wonder if a relegation scheme (similar to that used in international hockey and in some European soccer leagues) might work, with one or two teams switching leagues each year. I’m pretty sure the B1G would never go for it because of their traditions in other sports, but I don’t know why it wouldn’t work with the NCHC/WCHA. For instance, if you swapped last years’ top two WCHA teams (MnSU & NMU) with the bottom two NCHC teams (Miami & WMU)…
I know that some of you might say that teams would be playing to get out of the WCHA rather than to win it, and you’d be right. However, isn’t that exactly what MnSU (and maybe Bemidji too) has been trying to do for the last few years?